March 11: wallet threat level Kerrigan with dreads

I’ve been jumping back into Starcraft II and discovering it’s a muscle you need to exercise or it will atrophy. So what do I do after building a spawn pool? But regardless of how bad you suck, you can’t shuffle units around in this game without re-appreciating that it’s a finely tuned RTS that couldn’t possibly be more finely tuned. Or could it? We find out this week. And we also get one of those campaigns with crazily elaborate production values to distract you from the fact that you’re just flinging blobs of units at a mostly passive AI. But frankly, I think I care less about Heart of the Swarm being a Starcraft II add-on than I care about it being a Blizzard game.

Also out this week, a $10 add-on for Dead Space 3 called Awakened makes this almost infinitely replayable sci-fi shooter/meat stompin’ sim even more playable. You had me at telemetry spike, Dead Space 3. Just give me more weird things to shoot and new ways to shoot them.

Also, Sony’s taking one last half-hearted Playstation 3 stab at the God of War franchise. Remember that one? The angry bald guy with the tattoos who yelled “Zeus!” a lot?

Sure, Starcraft’s A.I. isn’t particularly clever or dynamic, but there’s an interesting challenge in playing against the hand of the level-designer.

anon

Darkstalkers won’t get resurrected at all, will it? :(

I too will be getting back into SC2 I think, haven’t played it since the months after it released. Well, I played 1 game after they added more leagues, got promoted to Master and then I just said mission accomplished I guess. Finally they’ve removed the region lock, that didn’t help…

Sean

I still enjoy watching the StarCraft HD trailers. But the game ? Pass.

Barac Wiley

I still prefer RTS campaigns, especially as elaborate and varied as Wings of Liberty’s was (hopefully Heart of the Swarm will similarly deliver), to any other way of playing an RTS.

And I guess I was wrong about picking up Tomb Raider. My videocard purchase included it, much to my surprise. Fantastic game.

Mercanis

I don’t know… I mainly play games for story, and StarCraft 2 and Diablo 3 left me rolling my eyes. Should I endure another Blizzard yarn?

Typo:
“But regardless of how bad you suck, you can’t shuffle units around in this game with [sic] re-appreciating that it’s a finely tuned RTS that couldn’t possibly be more finely tuned.”

tomchick

Actually, just to clarify, I think the AI in Starcraft 2 is quite good and a grand way to play skirmish games without necessarily jumping into the deep end of multiplayer.

But the AI in the single-player campaign is mostly passive because you’re not playing against it so much as you’re playing against the level itself, as you note, Roy. And to me, a level design is one of the least interesting opponents in an RTS. There are some exceptions — that day/night mission in Wings of Liberty, for instance — but you’re mostly just walking up to blobs of units standing around waiting to be activated. Repeat as necessary.

So I’m looking forward to seeing how Blizzard tries to keep it interesting in Heart of the Swarm, particularly since they’re not just relying on the usual space marines this time around.

http://www.facebook.com/sinkytown Roy Jones

Well, that rings true to me. Strip away each mission’s gimmicks and constraints and you’re left with the feeling that you’re tidying up a very messy room.